


I know, I’m strange, too much light makes me nervous

by another_Hero



Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Multi, Platonic Soulmates, Soulmates, canon divergence but not extreme, david has too much love to survive wcyd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-08 02:57:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21468937
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_Hero/pseuds/another_Hero
Summary: “We’re soulmates!” he shrieked, grabbing her side for a second. He’d meant it as a joke—similar marks, similar places—but he’d spent enough time gazing at his own soulmark, wondering at the improbability of it, to know on second glance that they were the same.
Relationships: Patrick Brewer/David Rose, Stevie Budd & David Rose, Stevie Budd/David Rose
Comments: 62
Kudos: 207





	1. the only warm thing for miles

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thingswithwings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithwings/gifts).

> Title and chapter titles are from the poem [“I’m Going Back to Minnesota Where Sadness Makes Sense”](https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/mqr/2019/07/im-going-back-to-minnesota-where-sadness-makes-sense/) by Danez Smith, which is not too long and is so beautiful and I sincerely recommend that everyone read it. it is better than this fic
> 
> Big thanks to fandom mvp RhetoricalQuestions for talking this through and then also agreeing when I asked to turn that talking-through into beta-ing
> 
> This fic came out of a long conversation that I, of course, missed, about David and Stevie being platonic soulmates. I popped in three hours later and multiple people agreed I could run with the idea (you can too!) and encouraged me and talked a bunch of stuff through. so this fic owes its entire existence to like eight thousand people, nontrivially including this-is-not-nothing, whetherwoman, didipickles, and particularly thingswithwings

Stevie slid cackling down the bed—Bree’s bed, Shaun’s? Shane’s?—the bed currently being inhabited by the repulsive cousins—and landed on the floor on her neck, mostly, but it didn’t look like she was in any pain. Her shirt slid up, and of course David looked—there weren’t many beautiful things in a place like this, among people like the ones who had been here last night. But he didn’t expect—“We’re soulmates!” he shrieked, grabbing her side for a second. He’d meant it as a joke—similar marks, similar places—but he’d spent enough time gazing at his own soulmark, wondering at the improbability of it, to know on second glance that they were the same.

But before Stevie could react, there was yelling outside the door, and they were making a hilarious escape into a truly shocking room. Then he was shushing her, up against the door, and lifting up her shirt.

It wasn’t that he questioned what he’d seen. But it’d been a while since he believed he’d get to see it, and he had to look again.

“What the fuck are you doing?” said Stevie, shoving his hand away with one of hers.

David was high enough to lift up his own shirt instead. He watched her jaw drop, giggled at the suspicion on her face. Like he would fake  _ this _ .

Tomorrow he would ugly cry, snot and heavy sobs, for the full 39 minutes of Alexis’ run about the what-ifs of this situation, the idea that they’d had to come to this horror-movie town for the sake of a disgruntled motel employee. But now he bent double in laughter at the idea. All the bullshit and bad options he’d been willing to try in New York and Shanghai and Cape Town and Buenos Aires, and here his soulmate had been the whole time, as dissatisfied as he was in a small-town motel. He should have spent his twenties on road trips. Thank God it was Stevie, he thought, and not—one of the others. Then: oh, that’s  _ why  _ it was Stevie.

“Huh,” she said. She didn’t sound troubled. She punched his arm. “You don’t have to find it  _ that _ funny.”

He shook his head while he pulled himself up. “Schitt’s Creek,” he managed to say.

That was enough to get Stevie laughing too, leaning in a little. And the hilarity faded out of both of them at the same time.

“I mean,” David said, looking back at the fugly room, still panting.

“If we’re soulmates,” Stevie agreed.

“We should probably…?” Stevie was gorgeous, and the universe had dictated that she would love him. So what if he’d only idly thought about sex with her before. He could do—he  _ had done _ —a lot worse. And she was probably great at sex. He’d learn to want her in no time.

“I mean, it’s like we’re  _ supposed _ to. Right?”

“The universe seems to think so.”

Stevie shrugged. “And who are we to argue with the universe?”

David bent down over her and waited for her to close the last gap between their lips. She kissed aggressively; he bet she would scratch. He raised his arms, triumphant.

They navigated the revelation inexpertly. David was a gaping chasm of want, but Stevie wasn’t much of a cuddler, so he didn’t push for it. The first time Stevie said, “So am I supposed to be, like, your  _ girlfriend _ ?” it had sounded so bizarre to both of them that they’d agreed that would  _ not _ be happening  _ now _ . Instead he lent her his book on the history of architecture and she lent him her train thriller, and they read in companionable silence in the lobby until Stevie’s shift ended, then fucked in the love room. She got up right after—she usually did, David taming his own impulse to  _ touch more _ —and he watched her peruse his sweaters, careless and naked, until David was so overwhelmed with fondness that he had to pick out the right one for her to wear and organize the rest. David had had limited experience with fondness, before. He’d never realized it could practically crack his ribs. He didn’t even want to touch her anymore, especially; that ebbed a few minutes after the sex. He was just—and it felt unfamiliar, a little foreign—glad she was there.

She eyed him suspiciously. “Why are you staring at me?”

“I’m not! I’m reorganizing my Givenchy.”

“Bless you.” She’d put on the Helmut Lang sweater he’d indicated over what were probably dollar-store jeans. The sweater didn’t fit her, but it fit her. He nodded approvingly. “Let’s go to the café,” she said.

David acquiesced easily. He wasn’t going to get a better offer.

David had expected that at some point, going out with Stevie might start to feel like dating. Maybe they’d want to hold hands, maybe touch feet. Maybe they’d go all the way to Elmdale not for the sake of edible pizza but to be together in a place where no one could see them. His parents were soulmates, and they were sort of—gross, with the love stuff. David had wished for that, assumed it was part of the package deal, but then, how many people got  _ this _ —the devil on their shoulder, personified and laughing at the next table? He was basically 29 and he wanted to sneak behind the bleachers with her. At the end of dinner, he walked her home because she was the one person he didn’t want to be away from as soon as possible.

Then David met this shithead teen, which very much confirmed that he should never do favors for anyone. The worst part was that he and Stevie had to consider the upsides of friends and the downsides of benefits. “I mean,” she said, “the sex is  _ good _ .”

“Agreed,” said David. “And soulmates—have sex, right, that’s something that soulmates do.”

“I bet that kid hasn’t even met his soulmate,” she said.

“Yeah,” said David. But still— “But still—”

She tilted her head like she got it.

“I just,” he said. “I don’t know what I would do if something went wrong.”

“Hey,” she said. “I’m not having any sex with you that you don’t want to have.”

“I don’t want you to think—”

She waited, eyebrows raised.

“I don’t want you to think I don’t— _ want _ you.”

“Oh, no, I’m  _ very _ clear on that.”

“It’s just—if the choice is giving up sex with you or giving up—”

“I get it,” she said. “Although it is  _ very _ amusing to think about the teenager who talked you into this jerking off to the thought of his soulmate while we have this  _ extremely  _ grown-up conversation.”

“I wouldn’t say that I’m jealous when I think of the teenager,” David said.

David’s parents found a buyer for the town. Stevie wanted to be gone as badly as David did, he knew that, and he asked her to come.

“To New York?”

“Yeah,” he said impatiently. “I have room for your stuff.”

“David, I’ve never been as far as  _ Toronto _ .”

He knew that, poor thing. “Now you can.”

“What am I going to  _ do _ there?”

“I don’t know, they have hotels in New York. I mean—” she didn’t  _ like _ the motel— “while you figure it out.”

“David, I don’t want to go where you have a bunch of shitty rich friends I won’t even know how to talk to.”

“But—” he said. He really hadn’t prepared for this. He thought they were supposed to be together. “We both want to leave. We should leave.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean you show up and  _ tell _ me we’re going to New  _ York _ . You have a  _ life _ there.”

“Yeah, that’s where my contacts are.”

“Okay, and what are your  _ contacts _ going to do with”—she gestured to herself.

Frankly, he’d imagined that part of his payout might go toward a few acceptable wardrobe pieces, but he knew better than to say so  _ here _ . “I want you there,” he said instead, softly.

It didn’t disarm her. She was supposed to  _ love _ him, wasn’t she, they were  _ soul mates _ . She stared him down. “Okay, well,  _ I _ don’t want  _ you _ just coming and  _ telling _ me it’s time to move. I can’t just— _ follow _ you.”

She  _ could _ . “Okay, um, where do  _ you _ want to go, Vancouver?”

“I—wh—” she flailed her arms for a few moments and walked back to the lobby.

He needed her, he knew he did, they were supposed to be together, but what good was a soulmate if she didn’t get you out of a motel in the woods? He left alone.

When he got back, she hugged him once, called him an asshole, and then decided to pretend that none of it had ever happened. He could recognize that—between the two of them—as generosity.


	2. this land where the trees always bear green

David had been restless all day—well, all day since Stevie came in. Patrick was aware enough of what went on around him, he hoped, to know that David had some trouble with the idea of their impending evening, and he was aware enough of their morning to know that David was also looking forward to being alone, together. He’d have asked about the hesitation, checked in, but he was worried enough for himself: David would find out they weren’t soulmates. He’d built a business with him, and he’d managed to ask him out, and he wasn’t always sure which of those was a greater accomplishment—but tonight, when David would have the chance to look over his whole body, he wouldn’t be able to keep the secret. They  _ weren’t _ made for each other, and David, unlike Patrick, was probably destined for someone else.

They’d already closed the store. They were going their separate ways, David to do whatever you did before sex if you were beautiful and conscientious, Patrick for dinner and a shower. Patrick was pretty sure he should say something before they did. Taking it slow meant giving David time to process, if this wasn’t what he wanted, before they showed up tonight. Giving David an out, in case he needed it. But he didn’t know how to start the conversation.  _ Look, please don’t think this changes anything, but—  _ Wrong.  _ Look, I really want you, but— _ Desperate. He tried to focus on the till, before it got so late that his distraction was suspicious.

David caught him when he’d finished with the cash, while he was still behind the counter, in that small protected space. “I, um,” said David, “I have to tell you something. Before tonight. Sorry.”

Patrick couldn’t help glancing down at his mouth, but David stepped back. Something serious, then. Patrick would hear it. “What’s that, David?”

“Um,” he said again, “sorry.”

“David, if you don’t tell me, I’m going to start guessing.”

David pressed his lips together and clenched his fingers into claws facing his own chest. “It’s just—” he said, shaking his legs, “it’s not—I feel like I should tell you before tonight—we’re not soulmates.”

Oh—maybe this would be easier than expected. David wasn’t looking at Patrick, he was looking at the ceiling, so when Patrick put a hand on his forearm, he flinched before he relaxed into it. “I know,” Patrick said.

Now David looked at him straight-on and wide-eyed.

“You  _ know _ ?”

Patrick nodded. “I don’t have one.”

This, it seemed, was surprising enough to throw David off his catastrophizing course. He relaxed his hands and set them on Patrick’s shoulders, and Patrick let himself be comforted. David was worried. David wanted this to be fine. “You don’t?” Patrick could hear the pity, the brief sadness on his behalf. He had David, he wanted what he had with David. But, someone else always said, a person  _ deserved— _

The easiest thing was to be honest. Clinical. “No, my mom doesn’t either. Or my grandpa. It kind of runs in the family.”

“Um,” said David, who knew that Patrick had a mom and a dad who were married to each other; they’d talked about that kind of thing long before the dating started. “Your dad—”

“Chose,” said Patrick. He didn’t want to defend it, so he said it like it was simple. It always had been, to him. His parents had always promised him that love didn’t rely on birthmarks. They’d been an example of it. So he didn’t tell David about what happened with his dad and his actual soulmate. They could talk about complicated things later.

“Oh,” David said quietly.

“I’m kind of relieved, actually,” said Patrick. “That you already know. I was—well, obviously I was putting off talking about it. I didn’t know if you’d—”

“Um, no, I know,” said David. “I still want—”

Patrick breathed, and he was sure he blushed. “Good,” he said, and they were closer together than he remembered them being, and he let his mouth find David’s neck on the way into a hug. He wasn’t sure he could look at him right now.

But it wasn’t—it was only a little bit of an assurance. And it was too early to ask for a  _ lot _ of assurance, but— “So, um,” said Patrick, pulling back after a moment, feeling embarrassed by his desperate reach for affection, like it was too early, which it was, though David kept a hand on him and was now still touching his elbow— “you know mine, I guess. Can you tell me yours?” He placed a quick kiss on David’s lips. “I mean, you don’t seem worried about it, but I’ve always—” he looked away. “I’m still a little worried.”

“About my soulmate?” David said almost disbelievingly. “Um, no, you should  _ not _ be worried.”

“That bad, huh?”

“Well, we’re on good terms at the moment, but I’m still waiting to see whether we should be,” David said, but like it was a joke. Not a real feud, just the way he’d tease Patrick, or Alexis, or Stevie.

“Uh-huh,” said Patrick, and he made his mind up, and he focused on his hands, “it’s just—I was with someone before, who said her soulmate wasn’t a big deal, and it made it kind of—confusing? She didn’t know them, yet, so I wasn’t sure—I wasn’t sure. And it made it hard, you know, to tell whether I wanted to be with her or was just—relieved that I could?” He and David talked, but he wasn’t sure he’d had to say something so terrifying since he first asked him out. “Which isn’t, I don’t worry about that with you, but—if you could just—I like to know what I’m dealing with, David.”

David nodded about eight times on the inhale. He was trying. Patrick wanted to hold him again. “Fine,” he said bravely. “My soulmate is Stevie.”

Patrick always wanted to be as neutral as he could with news from David that it seemed hard for him to say. But he was pretty sure his face went through a whole  _ series _ of expressions, surprise and curiosity and amusement and understanding. Of course David’s soulmate was Stevie. He’d barely met David before he’d mentioned her; he’d come by the motel once to pick David up and found him curled up practically in Stevie’s lap, while she, seeming unconcerned and not leaving even a hand on him, made an argument for the superiority of  _ Die Hard _ over  _ The Fast and the Furious _ . He’d seen her steal food off of David’s plate—Patrick would have feared for his life if he’d stolen food off of David’s plate. Hell, she wore his clothes sometimes. They even  _ smelled _ the same—it turned out David had pressed Stevie for information about her shampoo and then, when they opened the store, had forced her to use the one he liked. “Okay,” he said.

But David kept talking, and Patrick wasn’t going to stop him. “We never dated. We never wanted to. I love her very much, all of the time, so.” Sure. Patrick wasn’t asking for that yet, but if he ever did—you could love more than one person at once. “You do have to handle that, I guess. I even told her one time, which—that’s not the kind of thing I say. I said it to Mariah Carey once at a concert, and twice to my parents, and I think if you asked Alexis she’d probably say the second time included her.” This was a lot of information, the kind of information Patrick needed to keep. He was going to remember it, separate from the soulmate part, and tied to the soulmate part, and— “Me and Stevie, it’s—just a different kind of thing than me and you. Okay? No competition. I’m definitely not going to wake up one morning and realize I was supposed to be—doing all of this—with her the whole time.” His face was, probably involuntarily, demonstrating that he was sincere. If David wanted Stevie—if David didn’t want Patrick, Patrick wouldn’t be here.

“I was kind of wondering why she did this for us,” he said, aiming for a low-key teasing—not like he didn’t take David seriously, but like he had nothing to worry about.

“Yes, well, I am about 80% sure that there’s another shoe yet to drop,” David said, patting Patrick’s chest.

Patrick turned him by the arm and dropped a kiss on his shoulder and started pushing him toward the door. “It’s going to be great,” he said. “It was very nice of her.” He couldn’t touch him enough.

“You haven’t seen her apartment.”

“I’ll pick you up at seven,” Patrick said, with a kiss to David’s cheek, practically calm and nearly fine as they walked out separately into the night.


	3. the snow and stalled sea—a field of mirror

When Patrick asked Stevie if they could get a drink after rehearsal, she was already on alert. First of all, he was overly polite—“Do you think we could get a drink after this?”—for someone who was currently sweating and regularly forgetting how to count to four. For another thing, David had been whiny-texting Stevie at 2am last night, sending her links to mattresses he thought would be improvements for the motel and fake-asking how she could possibly  _ like _ sleeping alone, which meant tonight wasn’t one of the nights they spent apart. They ostensibly had three of those a week, out of David’s concern for Patrick’s independence and his own family, but it seemed like they ended up closer to one or two most of the time. “Is David meeting us?” she asked.

“What? No. Uh, no.”

Stevie narrowed her eyes at him. “Am I going to be mad at you by the end of drinks?”

He looked a little worried that she might. “I hope not?”

She rolled her eyes. “Whatever. You’re buying.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” But then Mrs. Rose was calling their attention back to her.

Patrick was obviously nervous, and he tried to make small talk anyway for about twelve seconds before Stevie said, “Spit it out.” He knew what she was talking about; he didn’t pretend otherwise.

It was hardly a  _ surprise _ to hear Patrick say, “I want to ask David to marry me.” Stevie had called it, about three minutes after she met Patrick. He wanted David, and he was the kind of guy who got married. She’d always teased David about a future with him: how he’d sleep with a filing cabinet next to the bed, how he’d bring home a stray dog and let it lick into his mouth. It was just how she and David talked. What was she supposed to say— _ He’s good for you, but you’ll still need me, too _ ?  _ He’s good for you, but please, still need me, too _ ? Neither one of them would have known how to respond to that.

But it was a surprise when Patrick followed up with, “So I was hoping for your blessing.”

Stevie tilted her head. “My blessing?”

Patrick nodded solemnly.

“What do you need  _ that _ for?” This was not some kind of shared-custody situation; it was just David.

“I mean,” Patrick chuckled, but it wasn’t humor, it was nerves— “You’re the love of his life.”

This was a little too heavy for Stevie; she could feel her lower lip threatening to wobble. “Says the guy who sleeps in his bed,” she tried. There had been times—there were still times—when she felt like a failed soulmate, that David needed so much else besides her, that she needed so much else besides him.

“I feel like I ought to thank you,” said Patrick.

“ _ Thank _ me?”

“I’m pretty sure you kept him alive for several years before I got here.”

“You’re fucking right.”

“I’m pretty sure you still are.”

More often, she didn’t know how romantic-partner soulmates managed, when they were expected to be so many things to each other. David, at least, had too much love for that. He had kinds of love Stevie couldn’t reciprocate, kinds of love she doubted Patrick could handle. “I’m lucky he has you,” she said. Envious as it sometimes made her, it was true. “And you’re lucky he has me. And he’s lucky as shit. We’re all just—lucky.” She looked down into her drink, because tears were prickling at the corners of her eyes, and Patrick was looking at her with that shining-moon face, asking for something she couldn’t possibly refuse him.

“I’m really happy for you,” she said wetly. She looked back up to see Patrick’s eyes were damp too. “You’re going to be so happy.”

He gave a tearful laugh and then reached out to hug her, there on the barstool, and she let him. “Thank you,” he said, and, “we all are,” like he could promise her that much.

Stevie pulled out of the hug; it wasn’t really her game. David had gradually worked his way into her personal space, but he was in all ways an exception. “When are you going to ask him?”

Patrick got a perfect smirk on his face. “I was thinking of taking him on a hike.”

The shouting laugh burst out of Stevie before she could stop it. “Wow,” she said, “you really have faith in true love, huh.”

“I’ll ply him with cheese,” he said. “He’ll complain. I think it’ll end up worth it.”

Stevie laughed into her nod. David complained to make sure you remembered he was there. The night after Emir had sent her back to Schitt’s Creek, she’d called David at 1am, an hour into trying to sleep. He’d come over, half-dressed, and slept the rest of the night leaning against her headboard with Stevie in his lap. The next morning, he’d rubbed her back all through his jeremiad on the ache in his neck. “Where does he think you are right now?”

Patrick frowned. “Drinks?”

“What, you said,  _ hey, after rehearsal I’m getting a drink with Stevie, and you’re not invited _ ?”

“I may have said  _ with the cast _ .”

“I bet you a bottle of wine he’s sitting with Alexis right now, discussing why you lied to him.”

“I’ll take that bet,” said Patrick. “Alexis is having dinner with Ted tonight.”

Damn. The good thing about losing a bet to Patrick was, he never came to collect. He was a competitive guy most of the time, didn’t seem like the type who wouldn’t press a victory. She wondered if he’d ever been scared of her. He’d learned about her and David pretty early on. She’d never asked how that was for him; it would have been weird for her to ask about his feelings, plus she hadn’t cared. She’d been too busy caring about David, whether he would manage, whether he would have time for her, whether a soulmate was someone you could replace. “Did you know that before you planned this?”

Patrick laughed. “I planned this after I found out.”

“Ah.” Good thing Stevie had ordered wine—beer glasses were too big, made you stick around too long. She was happy for David and Patrick, absolutely, but she needed to go home before she could think too much about how she felt for herself. She downed the rest of the wine. She thought you shouldn’t drive when your chest felt this shredded, but Patrick was probably overwhelmed and questionable too. “Please take pictures,” she said, standing up. “Of David hiking.”

“I will,” said Patrick. “Thank you, Stevie.”

She nodded. “Take care of him,” she said.

“I will,” said Patrick, calmer now. “We both will.” 


End file.
